Bi-amping RT1000i's

vicentre

Can i bi-amp the high and mid-range portion of my RT1000i's? I have a Parasound 5 channel @ 85 watts per channel. I want to run 4 channels to the RTs and the fifth to my CS245i and let the H/K AVR320 run the surrounds. Sound like a plan?

vince

RuSsMaN

Well, I'm just talking out of my ****, but you cannot 'bi' anything to the 1000's. No bi-wire, no bi-amp. Search on the topic rt1000, more reading and entertainment than you could possibly want...

Ok everyone got their helmets on? Let the Polk special olympics begin!!!

Cheers,
Russ

vicentre

I have read all the posts on the whole bi-wiring thing and i think you could bi-wire the 1000's, separating the high/mid-range terminals from the low and using the speaker passively,which defeats the speaker's purpose of being a powered tower. I, on the other hand, do alot of stereo music listening and would like to push them a little harder on the high and mid side and let the my stand alone sub and the tower's subs do their thing.

mantis

Russman, you do it well.
No you can't bi amp the rt1000 series or any other powered tower.Unless you bypass the internal amp which would be modifing the speaker.On the tech side basically the rt1000's are already bi amped.....so Russman is wrong from a certian point of view(don't worry about us we just like to bicker at each other).If you want to be tricky, bridge the 2 amps together.
To answer your question right , you can't bi amp the rt1000 series speaker.BUt YES YOU CAN BI WIRE THE RT1000 SPEAKERS.

mantis

Russman,
I need hard tech data to proof your theory on you can't bi wire the rt1000 series.Warm up those butt cheeks any flap away.;)

vicentre

Ok, so let me get this straight. I cannot split the pre-outs of my left and right channels of my receiver to 4 channels of my amp and run two channels to each speaker's top binding post, which are not connected to the lower binding post because i am using the rca input/outputs. I can not do this becauuusse it will blow my speakers up? sound like crap? what? I'm no great techie audiofile here, i just want to listen to my music and watch movies and have it sound really good.

RuSsMaN

Originally posted by mantis
.BUt YES YOU CAN BI WIRE THE RT1000 SPEAKERS.

Uhh, nope, wrong answer. Thanks for playing.

Cheers,
Russ

TroyD

Lesse, call Polk customer service and ask them if you can bi wire the RT1000's. Also, I don't see it as an option in the manual (it is in the non-powered manuals). So, in the strict sense, that would be evidence enough for me.......

Having said that, if it works for you, more power to ya.

BDT

Aaron

But Mantis tested it, so you guys must be wrong.

Aaron

nascarmann

Not sure, but I think I see smoke from the Asstalker tribe?

KING WANNABE

mantis

So wheres the hard data??Hmmm don't see any.
Speak boys and girls,show me what you got!

TroyD

"I just spoke with Polk technical service and the rep said that RT2000i's are not biwireable".......posted some time ago. How is that?

Plus, what is to be gained by adding power to a powered driver??

BDT

[Deleted User]

Hello,
Here is an easy method to determine if any speaker is going to benefit from either bi-wiring or bi-amplifying. Remove any of the binding post jumper plates from underneath the binding post caps. Connect speaker wire to the upper set of binding posts and begin playing any musical program source at a very moderate volume. If your speaker is capable of being bi-wired or bi-amplified only the tweeter will be producing sound, you will only hear treble information. If you also hear the mid range/bass driver producing sound then the speaker system won't benefit from bi-wiring or bi-amplifying. This way you can determine, for yourself, how the operation of the binding posts corresponds to the intended function.
Regards, Ken Swauger

vicentre

Great, just trying to get a specific answer to a specific question and i gotta scroll through the battle of the know it alls.

vicentre

Thanks Ken.

RuSsMaN

Nanner-Nanner-Nanner

-R

TroyD

Sounds like hard data to me.......

OK, assuming that Ken's test is valid, how could one say then that a speaker could be bi-wired but not bi-amped?

BDT

RuSsMaN

Another good point Troy.

Any speaker that can be bi-wired, can also be bi-amped, and vice versa. Of course, if an individual has their helmet strapped on too tight, they may have trouble grasping this basic concept.

Cheers,
Ed Zachry

And vice, relax, you will most always get the answers you seek, try to enjoy the extra as free entertainment, if nothing else...

TroyD

what's your take on Ken's test?

BDT

TroyD

Seriously, we seem to have two schools of thought here. To be honest, Ken's test seems to make most sense to me but I'd like to hear what the other camp's take is.

Troy

mantis

No problem TroyD,
I posted it somewhere else but I will give to you why I Bi wired a powered tower.
I owned the rt1000p's since they came out,I really wanted the rt16's but they were gone at that time.I sat and listened to all the new models and i liked the rt1000p over the rt800's which were closer to what I wanted in the rt16's a passive tower not a powered tower.I found them to sound tighter in the midrange and with the built in amp, I felt i could tune them to my listening room.Back then I owned the Yamaha rxv992.I first wired them with just 12 gauge monster 12-2,left the jumpers in and away I went.After reading about them and was wondering if Line level would work better I decided to remove the jumpers and run the top in 12-2 and run line level to the sub.The output of the yamaha was strong,I had to turn the sub level down a bit to blend the speaker back where I had it.They worked like that but I didn't really hear a big difference in sound quality like I had hoped for.The sub didn't respond the same way it did with speaker level, but i left it that way untill I upgraded to the Pioneer Elite vsx26tx.This receiver didn't sound good wired that way,I thought about putting in the jumper's and using the 12-2 by itself.I worked for Tweeter and Monster was a good deal for employees and I have been Bi wiring passive speakers, making bi iwres for clients that didn't buy pre made and found that it benifited there systems greatly.So I picked up a pair of monster cable MCX bi wires and went home to try.WOW my sound stage opened up and they sounded completly different, for the better.The Older 12-2 never sounded like that, the sub was blending much better and the mid's and high's were crystal clear.My Image got so good I had to walk up to the center channel to hear if it was on when running 2 channel stereo.Amazing.After a while I started to eye up the Monstercable M1.4's, I just had to have them As I did a wire shootout in the store between my wires and the newer and better M 1.4s.I hooked them up and even not burned in they killed the MCX wires dead.I didn't think the Polks had it in them.The clearity went threw the roof.I couldn't believe how much just changing speaker wires out made on sound quality.I heard differences in different brand and sizes but nothing like this.After awhile i felt the tweaters where to strong and I started to want new speakers.I heard the rt1000i's and thought they sounded better.I called Polk and bought the new tweeters and crossovers.Even right out of the box the new crossover and tweater was sounding better,We went out for the day so I put the cd in random play and off we went.When we came home that day,I noticed a more laid back nutral sound, so nice I fell inlove with my Speakers again.
Next came the Denon avr3801 and the increase of dynamic power and warmer sound,I felt it mated the best out of the last 3 receivers I owned.The wire remained.
To cut this short,I tested everyway you can wire them.And did a vs b vs c and the bi wire always sounded better.I made it fair and removed the m 1.4s and used bulk monster 14-2 and 14-4 with the plates in and out, ran line level with the 14-2 and perferred the sound of this speaker even though it's powered, sounded better ran in speaker level than jumped or line level.

RuSsMaN

Ok, first, try to make some paragraphs in your post, just hard to read, period. Second, and I can't really tell based on the post above, you are saying you noticed a difference between a line level, and high level (speaker wire) connection? Am I reading this right?

Did you make a jumper? Did you test any other wire connections without the jumper? I'm just asking, sounds like this:

1. You left the jumper in place and connected the sub via LFE.
2. You them remove the jumper, and connected the sub (and mains) via a bi-wire cable.

Hate to break it to ya, but that still ain't bi-wiring. Did you test a wire jumper vs your bi-wire cable? I could be mis-interpreting your post....I could be wrong too... heck, I've been wrong once before, back in the summer of '88.

Cheers,
Russ

Ps. Still no mention of Ken's basic test....if you did bi-wire, why can you not bi-amp the 1000's? The two options walk hand in hand my fellow audio freak......

Funny stuff brotha.....

TroyD

OK, still waiting for an answer.........

If Ken's test is valid. How can you say that a powered tower is really biwired, second how could you justify saying that you can biwire but not biamp??

If you like the way the sound wired the way they are, cool, but are the strictly defined as being biwired?

I'm not trying to be a smartass but there is a gap in thought here.


Troy

mantis

Maybe I'm not clear how I wired it.
1) First 12-2 to top bindingpost with Jumpers in(factory.)
2)Jumpers removed with 12-2 to top posts and line level in from pre out mains left to left and right to right,again no jumpers.
3)Bi wired meaning speaker level to the top binding posts, no jumpers and speaker level to the sub's binding posts wired from the receiver's binding posts.The Wire was a premade bi wire speaker cable...its called the Monster cable MCX-BI WIRE.tHATS MEANS IN SIDE THE PREMADE JACKET THERES 4 CONDUCTORS.2 FOR THE HIGH SIDE AND 2 FOR THE LOW SIDE.
4)Bi Wired again with a higher end premade Bi wire speaker cable.Its called the MONSTERCABLE M 1.4S BI WIRE.

mantis

Maybe I'm not clear how I wired it.
1) First 12-2 to top bindingpost with Jumpers in(factory.)
2)Jumpers removed with 12-2 to top posts and line level in from pre out mains left to left and right to right,again no jumpers.
3)Bi wired meaning speaker level to the top binding posts, no jumpers and speaker level to the sub's binding posts wired from the receiver's binding posts.The Wire was a premade bi wire speaker cable...its called the Monster cable MCX-BI WIRE.tHATS MEANS IN SIDE THE PREMADE JACKET THERES 4 CONDUCTORS.2 FOR THE HIGH SIDE AND 2 FOR THE LOW SIDE.
4)Bi Wired again with a higher end premade Bi wire speaker cable.Its called the MONSTERCABLE M 1.4S BI WIRE.NO JUMPERS.
I babble alot,I post like I talk not how I write,sorry for all the run on sentences but As I think I post.
The rt1000p's have speaker level in for the sub as well as line level,or simply you can use the jumpers or make your own.I can see why your confused about the bi wire thing as the bottom part of the speaker is self powered.The top half is still passive.
Hers the true meaning of bi wiring.
Bi wiring is running 2 different wires from one amp to 2 sets of binding posts on a given speaker.Passive speaker's that can be bi wired seperate the tweeter and the mid range in a 2 way ,in a true 3 way,the top binding posts power the tweeter and the midbass driver,and the bottom posts power the bass drivers.Running full range to both posts allow the internal crossover to filterout all unwanted frequences.In theory, you don't loose any pulled frequences that get filtered out by the crossover traveling to the wrong binding post.This happens when the jumpers are in place.By removing them you can seperate 2 full range signals to each.
The powered subs in the rt1000p's in my opnion sound better in speaker level then line level.I can't explain why they do as I didn't design the speaker.I only know what I hear.
Remember this.....the mains are set to large, there is an external sub for LFE, no LFE speaker or line level is being sent to the towers.i tried the small thing with the LFE ran and looped through, I didn't care for that setup .Jumpers were removed so you don't get confused.

vicentre

I have a question for you mantis. when you are calibrating your subwoofer levels, do you match the subwoofer level of your external sub with the mains alone or with the subs in the towers as a whole? or with each sub separately?

TroyD

Yeah, I think I got a handle on what bi-wiring is. So, essentiall, what you are saying is that they aren't REALLY biwired nor can they be. Cool.

Troy

mantis

When I calibrate the sub's in the tower's,I use music in 2 channel to level left and right.I run the mains full range.
The sub by itself the psw450 which I use for LFE and bass management for the center and all the rears.
So basically the towers are full range for music with no external sub and for movies they stay in full range and the rest of the system is in small.

mlware

in reply to whatever was above, Yes, I biwire my ancient rt1000i's, with separate wires connecting to the upper frequency terminals, and to the low freq. terminals with the jumpers removed. The sound is improved over the sound of a single wire setup, especially noticable on good orchestral recordings featuring a lot of high brass, there is a feeling of space and air and specific things being sounded through instruments which I did not nec. get so cleanly using the single wiring approach. It is quite possible I am deluding myself but I did not care for the sound of the single wiring approach once I had gotten used to the biwired method. SO I HAVE AT LEAST FOOLED MYSELF INTO BELIEVING I HAVE MADE A DIFFERENCE THROUGH THE USE OF BIWIRING MY SPEAKERS. Bass is taken up by separate powered subs in addition to the modest built-in rt1000i subs, which I have set at a lower setting to avoid killing them. I once fried a set of rt1000p sub drivers by playing them at the 11 o clock position only at at about 11 o clock on the overall volume level, so I'm programmed to distrust already.

scottvamp

O.K. you guys are killing me.
Any speaker can be bi-wired. It is simply running two sets of wires from the amp to the speaker.
Can the rt1000's be bi-amped? YES
There are two sets of binding post - one for the tweeter and one for the mid-driver. Most of the rt line is this way. The sub. inside is totally seperate. One amp drives the tweeter and one amp drives the mid. What is so f--cking confusing about that? I think I need another BEER!;)

TroyD

You can run two sets of wires, yes, but if you read Ken's post above.....clearly, a powered tower can't be, in the true sense of the word bi-wired. Call Polk, they'll tell you the same thing.

BDT